2017 1Q Update

I mentioned at the end of last year that I would be trying some things to promote Marooned and see how things go this year in order to make a decision on whether or not, or how to, continue.

In the first quarter, I tried 3 things.

Project Wonderful advertising

Facebook targeted advertising

Top Webcomics promotion

In addition to doing the “normal” things. Results? Readership continues to decline. It doesn’t seem as though any of those three channels resulted in new readers. (But hey, if you are new from one of the three, please let me know).

In January, I was recording around 315 weekly users. We are currently now at around 250. That’s an alarming drop for so few readers.

A friend of mine and I who both do comics have been having a lot of conversations about this. Some tough questions need to be asked, mainly:

If what you are doing has been proven not to work, why continue doing it?

If the “standard practices” aren’t working, shouldn’t I do something different?

Ultimately, I think I have to look in the mirror. If the strip fails to grow or pull in a passionate audience, I can only blame the content in the end. It’s simply not good enough, or not appealing enough. If it were, more people would read, but more importantly, more people would tell others. In marketing it’s the Net Promoter Score. And I can tell you that pretty much the only promoter of Marooned is me.

THAT IS NOT TO BLAME YOU, THE READER. I want to be perfectly clear on that. If you are not compelled to share with others, that’s my fault. It also needs to be said that not everyone is comfortable promoting things even if they do like it. Not everyone is a sharer. That’s why it’s important to have a larger following, so the rare ones that do promote make a difference.

At this point, Marooned is a tough sell. There’s a large archive to dig through. It’s a long form story, which frankly the internet does not reward by noticing on social media. It needs organic growth, and we just may be beyond that.

I have other stories to tell (like “The Flower” in production on Patreon) and I have a goal to put together stories for sick children. (“The Flower” is part of that, as is my story “Green” many of you have read.) At some point, I’d like my stories to make a difference, to have a connection that matters.

I’m not quite ready to give in yet. But certainly something has to change. I don’t really know what more I can do, though.

One option is to go completely behind the Patreon paywall and just update when I can for those supporters. I’m aware that choosing that would result in losing almost all of you. It might give me a little boost and earnings and would allow me to only concentrate on a single point of publishing.

I’m not looking to you for answers. I am thankful for each one of you that visits and reads. I’m just being totally transparent so you know what is going on. This really hasn’t been working for some time now. I either need to be okay with dwindling numbers, go behind the paywall, or stop completely. It’s not a decision I make lightly. This story and these characters mean a lot to me.

For the next quarter, I will continue producing and trying to think of solutions. I’ll re-assess again at that time.

Discussion (4) ¬

Have to go where yourheart leads you. Did you consider thatthere is too little content, or content is distributed too infrequently? The syndicated strips usually appear 7 days a week, and build very loyal followings.

Oh, it’s certainly too little. I would love to do more. Consider each page takes 4-6 hours to complete – let’s call it 5. To update 6 times a week would mean 30 hours a week of comics work. That would be great – if that was my only job. But of course, it’s not. 🙂 It would be great to just do twice a week, but with my other projects I can’t even commit to that.

That doesn’t even take into account posting and promoting. But hey, I chose this – I get that. Nobody said comics was easy – trust me.

But even more updates wouldn’t guarantee NEW readers. It would be great for you guys. I could post the rest of my buffer this week – post every day. I doubt anything would change. I have tried this before in the past.

Ironically enough, the last time I regularly followed Marooned was back in 2014, right before the last decision to discontinue free access; at the time, I’d argued that there was just too much competition from other creators for a pay-only model to really make sense.. the response I received from you was less-than-encouraging, to the point of hostility, and that contributed to keeping me away even when I saw it was back up. It wasn’t all, though.

As a freelance illustrator, I know intimately how rough it is to pour your creative energy into something that never seems to measure up, much less attract new clients, and I can’t claim to have a for-sure solution. I can say with certainty, though, that bringing the pay wall up again will only be nails in the coffin for Marooned, and that sometimes the only way forward is to accept the problem and rethink how you’re approaching the work itself.

My recommendation to you would be to study how successful comics really tick, on a story level, and work out how to build solid hooks for new and returning readers. As it stands, you’re absolutely right about the size of the archive – for me, though, the real problem is that those early chapters really don’t offer much for holding my attention, with the story moving very slowly and without much in the way of depth… and the overly-simplistic visuals do nothing to liven it up. I’m sorry, I know criticism can sting, but you can’t fix something if you don’t know what’s wrong with it.

Take a look at a well-received series like Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell, for example, and you’ll see that the its art and story have evolved dramatically over its years of life and dozens of chapters. It wasn’t afraid to experiment, or to grow as a result, and as a result it has enjoyed a broad and positive reader-base. Marooned, meanwhile? It definitely has a lot more charm than it used to, but I’m afraid that’s not saying much. Its palette is still drably limited to mostly shades of blue and orange, and the flatness of it all looks like something out of an old newspaper. Even skipping past the tediously slow start, it’s discouraging to find that there’s more of approximately the same.

See, I realise that a lot of comic artists want to emulate the feel of those syndicated strips they grew up with, but you have to realise that newspaper comics are dead. They’re zombies. They only still exist out of sentimentalism, and any legitimate entertainment value they had died years, sometimes DECADES ago; with the Internet making it easier and easier to share and access artwork and stories, those old styles can’t help but look visually-uninteresting. It’s just outmoded, and we need to move on.

To sum it up: it can be a hard pill to swallow, but if you want to attract people to your work, you need to be ready to adapt to their wants and needs. You could start with at Denver Brubaker’s pages as an example of where your style could go without sacrificing its base aesthetic, but whatever you do, you can’t keep going where you’re going if you really want your comic to succeed. The competition thing is only becoming more and more true.

That’s exactly it, VIcki, when it comes to the style of Marooned and the pace of story. I was learning when I first did this, and the criticism is very valid and not taken personally. Have I looked at successful comics. Of course. I’m well aware of Gunnerkrigg Court and the likes. There is actually little to be gained by trying to emulate any one success. They all made their own way. GK was popular from the start. Even though his art was also not refined at the time, it was received as unique and interesting. Marooned was not.

I just don’t know that Marooned can be “fixed” at this point. It could possibly be completely rebooted, but I don’t really have any interest in doing that.

And yes, Marooned specifically hearkens back to a certain era of comics by design. And I agree that probably limits the audience. “Do what you love,” they say, right? Maybe not.